European fishing firms reflag ships to tap Indian Ocean tuna quotas,
report finds
[May 07, 2026] By
HELEN WIEFFERING
The European fishing fleet has long been a powerhouse at catching tuna,
with a fleet of massive vessels known as purse seiners that can hold as
much as 4 million pounds (1.8 million kilograms) of fish at a time.
Dozens of them roam the Indian Ocean, fishing for skipjack, yellowfin
and bigeye tuna destined for cans on grocery store shelves.
So when Jess Rattle began seeing purse seine ships fishing the Indian
Ocean under the flags of Mauritius, Tanzania and Oman, she wondered
whether European corporations might be involved.
“We wanted to understand who really owned these vessels,” said Rattle,
head of investigations at the London-based environmental charity Blue
Marine Foundation. “Were they owned by the coastal states whose quota
they were now using, or in fact, were they owned by the EU?”
A new report released Thursday by the Blue Marine Foundation and Kroll,
a global investigations firm, and shared with The Associated Press in
advance reveals the extent of the European fleet’s access to Indian
Ocean tuna stocks, finding that European companies have taken a third of
the tropical tuna catch at a time when yellowfin and bigeye tuna are
under pressure and still rebounding from being severely overfished.
They have done so in part by registering their ships under the flags of
the Seychelles, Mauritius, Kenya, Tanzania and Oman to gain access to a
greater catch limit, Rattle’s team found. The practice has allowed the
European-owned fleet to expand to more than 50 purse seine ships and
supply vessels and increase its catch of tropical tuna despite the
European Union’s commitments to cutting back.
The finding comes ahead of an annual meeting of the Indian Ocean Tuna
Commission in the Maldives, which brings together the EU and 28
countries with a stake in the tuna fishery.
While common in the fishing industry and not illegal, reflagging a
vessel to a foreign country makes it difficult for observers and
regulators to gauge the impact of European companies on the fishery.
Parent company ownership is often obscured via layers of shell companies
and foreign registries, which Rattle and the team at Kroll tracked down
over the course of months.
“Europe’s opportunity to help stop overfishing is greater than first
appears,” said Benedict Hamilton, a managing director at Kroll.
Though European companies have long fished under the Seychelles flag,
Rattle said, their registering under the flags of Oman and Kenya is new.
Europeche Tuna Group, which represents the European tuna industry, said
in a statement that the industry’s relationship with coastal nations
reflects its long-term investment in the region and strong local
partnerships.
Spokesperson Anne-France Mattlet said the European industry benefits the
economy of regional countries by paying taxes and fishing license fees,
investing in local infrastructure, and unloading tuna and other fish in
their ports and canneries.
Mattlet concurred with the report’s findings that Europeche has more
than 50 purse seine and supply ships operating throughout the Indian
Ocean, including with non-EU flags.
Maciej Berestecki, a spokesperson for the European Commission, said in a
statement the reflagging of fishing vessels is a private business
decision not influenced by public authorities, and that the EU does not
defend or represent the interests of vessels flagged to other countries.
“The EU has done, and keeps doing, its utmost to promote and respect
catch limits,” Berestecki said.
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This photo provided by Jess Rattle shows a tuna catch being hauled
in by a net aboard a purse seiner, April 24, 2025, in Port Victoria,
in the Seychelles. (Jess Rattle via AP)
 Despite Europe’s distance from the
Indian Ocean, its fishing fleets have long played a dominant role
there. Spanish and French tuna companies first introduced purse
seine ships to the Indian Ocean in the 1980s, which allowed them to
quickly increase their yearly catch. The ships get their name from
their giant nets that encircle the tuna and close like a drawstring
purse.
But the EU has occasionally butted heads with
coastal nations that want a say over the fishing practices in the
ocean at their doorstep.
Five years ago, with yellowfin tuna stocks in sharp decline, the
Maldives accused the EU of not putting forth a serious proposal to
lower tuna quotas at a contentious meeting of the tuna commission.
In 2023, the EU objected to a proposal from Indonesia for a closure
on purse seine fishing gear that passed with the support of 15 other
countries.
In recent years, the tuna commission has put in place new management
measures to rebuild the vulnerable yellowfin and bigeye tuna stocks,
which are beginning to show signs of recovering. For instance, the
EU agreed to reduce the yellowfin tuna catch for EU-flagged vessels
by 21%.
Those new limits may be pushing European fishing companies to look
to other countries’ quotas to maintain their catch, said Glen
Holmes, senior officer with Pew Charitable Trusts.
Holmes and colleagues from Pew, Global Fishing Watch, and other
environmental groups are advocating for greater ownership
transparency among fishing fleets in the Indian Ocean.
Shipowners have long registered vessels under the flags of foreign
countries, much to the dismay of transparency advocates, who say the
practice limits oversight of those ships. Sanctioned oil tankers in
the ‘ghost fleet’, for instance, frequently change their name and
flags to conceal their ownership.
Certain flags have become known as ‘flags of convenience,’ offering
companies low fees and lenient attitudes toward fishing or trade
rules. Some countries may simply have fewer resources to enforce the
laws of the sea.
A January report by the environmental group Oceana found European
companies routinely register fishing vessels under the flags of
foreign nations, including some countries the EU has accused of
“turning a blind eye to illegal fishing activities.”
Oceana is calling on EU countries to begin collecting and publishing
ownership data for their fishing fleet.
The change would help the EU better enforce its own laws, which
prevent any European individual from benefiting financially from the
practices of illegal fishing, said Vanya Vulperhorst, Oceana’s
illegal fishing campaign director for Europe. And it would shed
light on “the real EU fleet,” she said.
“What we found last year is that the real European fleet, if you add
the non-EU flagged vessels, doubles,” Vulperhorst said.
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